H erbert Wurth trained as a chemist at the Vienna University of Technology, where a research project on mushroom propagation set him on what turned into a thirty-year second career. He has been cultivating fungi in the laboratory and in the garden ever since, working steadily through species that most amateurs are told are out of reach — shiitake, lion's mane, oyster mushrooms, truffles.
From a smallholding in Großschönau in the Waldviertel, he runs the Waldviertler Pilzgarten with his daughter Magdalena, an agricultural scientist; the garden functions as nursery, research site and teaching ground for home growers across the German-speaking countries.
With Magdalena Wurth he co-authored Home-Grown Mushrooms from Scratch, a working guide for amateur growers covering nineteen species and the full cycle from substrate to harvest.
